• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SafetyRisk.net

Humanising Safety and Embracing Real Risk

  • Home
    • About
      • Privacy Policy
      • Contact
  • FREE
    • Slogans
      • Researchers Reveal the Top 10 Most Effective Safety Slogans Of All Time
      • When Slogans Don’t Work
      • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
      • BIGGEST COLLECTION of WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
      • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
      • COVID-19 (Coronavirus, Omicron) Health and Safety Slogans and Quotes for the Workplace
      • Safety Acronyms
      • You know Where You Can Stick Your Safety Slogans
      • Sayings, Slogans, Aphorisms and the Discourse of Simple
      • Spanish Safety Slogans – Consignas de seguridad
      • Safety Slogans List
      • Road Safety Slogans 2023
      • How to write your own safety slogans
      • Why Are Safety Slogans Important
      • Safety Slogans Don’t Save Lives
      • 40 Free Safety Slogans For the Workplace
      • Safety Slogans for Work
    • FREE SAFETY eBOOKS
    • Free Hotel and Resort Risk Management Checklist
    • FREE DOWNLOADS
    • TOP 50
    • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS
    • Find a Safety Consultant
    • Free Safety Program Documents
    • Psychology Of Safety
    • Safety Ideas That Work
    • HEALTH and SAFETY MANUALS
    • FREE SAFE WORK METHOD STATEMENT RESOURCES
    • Whats New In Safety
    • FUN SAFETY STUFF
    • Health and Safety Training
    • SAFETY COURSES
    • Safety Training Needs Analysis and Matrix
    • Top 20 Safety Books
    • This Toaster Is Hot
    • Free Covid-19 Toolbox Talks
    • Download Page – Please Be Patient With Larger Files…….
    • SAFETY IMAGES, Photos, Unsafe Pictures and Funny Fails
    • How to Calculate TRIFR, LTIFR and Other Health and Safety Indicators
    • Download Safety Moments from Human Resources Secretariat
  • Social Psychology Of Risk
    • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
    • Safety Psychology Terminology
    • Some Basics on Social Psychology & Risk
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick
    • The Psychology of Leadership in Risk
    • Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk
    • The Psychology of Conversion – 20 Tips to get Started
    • Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk And Safety
    • Psychology and safety
    • The Psychology of Safety
    • Hot Toaster
    • TALKING RISK VIDEOS
    • WHAT IS SAFETY
    • THE HOT TOASTER
    • THE ZERO HARM DEBATE
    • SEMIOTICS
    • LEADERSHIP
  • Dr Long Posts
    • ALL POSTS
    • Learning Styles Matter
    • There is no Hierarchy of Controls
    • Scaffolding, Readiness and ZPD in Learning
    • What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?
    • Presentation Tips for Safety People
    • Dialogue Do’s and Don’ts
    • It’s Only a Symbol
    • Ten Cautions About Safety Checklists
    • Zero is Unethical
    • First Report on Zero Survey
    • There is No Objectivity, Deal With it!
  • THEMES
    • Psychosocial Safety
    • Resiliencing
    • Risk Myths
    • Safety Myths
    • Safety Culture Silences
    • Safety Culture
    • Psychological Health and Safety
    • Zero Harm
    • Due Diligence
  • Free Learning
    • Introduction to SPoR – Free
    • FREE RISK and SAFETY EBOOKS
    • FREE ebook – Guidance for the beginning OHS professional
    • Free EBook – Effective Safety Management Systems
    • Free EBook – Lessons I Have Learnt
  • Psychosocial Safety
    • What is Psychosocial Safety
    • Psychological Safety
      • What is Psychological Health and Safety at Work?
      • Managing psychosocial hazards at work
      • Psychological Safety – has it become the next Maslow’s hammer?
      • What is Psychosocial Safety
      • Psychological Safety Slogans and Quotes
      • What is Psychological Safety?
      • Understanding Psychological Terminology
      • Psycho-Social and Socio-Psychological, What’s the Difference?
      • Build a Psychologically Safe Workplace by Taking Risks and Analysing Failures
      • It’s not weird – it’s a psychological safety initiative!
You are here: Home / Risk Assessment / Bow-Tie BS

Bow-Tie BS

August 23, 2021 by Dr Rob Long 6 Comments

Bow-Tie BS

The Bow-Tie has been celebrated for years in risk and safety as if it is a good model for risk analysis. Nothing could be further from reality. I couldn’t think of a worse model for understanding risk, causality or the emergence of events.

The BowTie was developed out of the chemistry industry and its origin is often attributed to the University of Queensland in 1979. However, it seems to have emerged from other preceding mechanistic models of hazard analysis such as: ‘fault tree’ thinking, ‘swiss cheese’ causality and ‘damaging energy’ mythology. All these models, semiotics and discourse have nothing to say about the fallibility of persons (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/fallibility-risk-living-uncertainty/ ) or systems. Indeed, none of the discourse associated with any of these models has anything to say about the nature of persons, an ethic of risk or uses person-centric language. Similarly, the Discourse of ‘drift into failure’ doesn’t serve us well when considering human judgment and decision making in risk.

For the moment, let’s just have a look at the Bow-Tie model.

The Bow-Tie serves as a metaphor determined by the shape of the model. The most comprehensive explanation of the Bow-Tie Model is given by Talbot and Jakeman in The Security Risk Management Body of Knowledge (SRMBoK). You will even see in this model the Bow Tie placed over Reason’s model of Swiss Cheese. See Figure 1. Bow Tie and Swiss Cheese (p.59. SRMBoK)

Figure 1. Bow-Tie and Swiss Cheese

clip_image002

The Bow-Tie Model seeks to explain the nature of events in a linear model of attenuated and amplified events. Its primary focus is on hazards as if humans are NOT a part of unfolding events. If you have a look at Figure 2. Bow-Tie Model, you will see the focus is on hazards, barriers, factors and controls. The notion of ‘source’ is neither defined nor explained.

Figure 2. Bow-Tie Model

clip_image004

If you read the SRMBoK you will realise that human persons play no part in the way risk is explained. The strange thing is that the so called ‘source’ is never defined, there is no discussion of persons, personhood or starting points. Similarly, the notion of ‘fallibility’ gets no mention in the model either of systems or persons. Similarly, there is no ‘drift into failure’. From what? From what state of being do events emerge? Similarly, there is no mention of an ethic of risk nor any discussion of what the Bow-Tie model assumes of persons, systems, decision making, human judgment or human enactment.

Of course, the Bow-Tie is not just a model of causation and risk but also a semiotic that seeks to explain the unfolding of events as ordered, mechanical, understandable, logical and rational.

Events do not emerge in this way. Such metaphors as Swiss Cheese and Bow Tie have more in common with BS than reality.

The Bow-Tie is a model of systemic order placed over the real and messy reality of how events emerge and how human persons tackle risk. The reality of life is, the emergence of events as most often: messy, involving many unconscious factors, many hidden human elements, as chaotic and non-systemic. Real life is more like a matted rhizome (https://safetyrisk.net/the-rhizome-as-a-learning-model-for-risk/ ) than an ordered Bow-Tie. The Bow-Tie as a semiotic conveys the idea that events occur as an ‘in and out’ process. Such a model lends itself well to the assumptions of behaviourism (https://safetyrisk.net/the-curse-of-behaviourism/ ) but in no way reflects reality.

You could just as easily think of life-living as a meandering line of twists and turns often created by the emergence of unforeseen social events. One could equally use the metaphor of a river to imagine and symbolise the twists and turns of life events as it winds its way between the pressures and forces of the terrain that shape it. This can be represented as a wiggling line eg. See Figure 3. Wiggle Line.

Figure 3. Wiggle Line.

clip_image006

What Safety does with the Bow-Tie, Swiss Cheese or any other linear model of causation is place a framework over that line in order to deconstruct it, control it and turn it from a messy reality into an ordered reality. See Figure 4. Ordered Framework.

Figure 4. Ordered Framework.

clip_image008

The Bow-Tie, Swiss Cheese and Damaging Energy models are simply symbolic models placed over reality in order to control it and give off the idea that everything is controllable, ordered and systemic.

Once a metaphor-as-model is symbolized, it makes the myth it embodies into a symbol of power, constructing a level of acceptability and orthodoxy through the symbol as if it resembles reality, when it doesn’t. What these models most often hide is an undisclosed philosophical ethic about persons and risk. These assumptions are never discussed. What all of these models ignore is the question about starting points. What is the status and being of the person before they engage (engaged in risk) with a hazard?

The Bow-Tie, Swiss Cheese or any of the mechanistic-behaviourist models in Safety adore the myths-symbols that suit its assumptions and purpose. Everything is under control, you were perfect once, and if you follow this model, we’ll get you to Zero once again.

The truth is, life is disorderly, messy, non-predictable and messy. The Bow-Tie is just a constructed model placed over reality and as such does a very poor job of being helpful for anything.

The reality is, there is no ‘drift’ into failure, there is no in and out in causality, there is no swiss-cheese reality. Humans and systems don’t achieve perfection nor ‘start’ from it and then fall away. Human persons and systems are always fallible, vulnerable and never perfect. There is no zero.

Once one gets silly Safety constructs out of the way and embraces risk as a ‘wicked problem’ (https://safetyrisk.net/risk-and-safety-as-a-wicked-problem/ ), then that focus can move away from zero (https://safetyrisk.net/moving-away-from-zero-so-that-safety-improves/ ), numbers and constructs of control to a focus on learning and resilience, living with risk as if it is not the enemy. This is why Risk Makes Sense (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/risk-makes-sense/ ).

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
  • More about Rob
Dr Rob Long

Dr Rob Long

Expert in Social Psychology, Principal & Trainer at Human Dymensions
Dr Rob Long

Latest posts by Dr Rob Long (see all)

  • When You Don’t Know, Just Make S4*t Up - September 30, 2023
  • Zero is Founded on Deceit and Lies - September 29, 2023
  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea? - September 27, 2023
  • The Blessings of Fallibility - September 27, 2023
  • Safety as Zero, The Perfect Event - September 25, 2023
Dr Rob Long
PhD., MEd., MOH., BEd., BTh., Dip T., Dip Min., Cert IV TAA, MRMIA Rob is the founder of Human Dymensions and has extensive experience, qualifications and expertise across a range of sectors including government, education, corporate, industry and community sectors over 30 years. Rob has worked at all levels of the education and training sector including serving on various post graduate executive, post graduate supervision, post graduate course design and implementation programs.

Please share our posts

  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Risk Assessment, Robert Long Tagged With: behaviourism, Bow-Tie

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Neil McNaughton says

    November 18, 2021 at 2:06 AM

    I cannot claim to have any in-depth knowledge of risk. But it always seemed to me that the “bow tie” method was a bit peculiar. So I googled ‘bow tie risk bullshit’ and you came up N° 1. Good stuff. My own 2cents… Checkout some of the videos on the Chemical Safety Board website csb.gov. I bet these plants had some cheesy risk analysis done at some time or other. Then look at the old rust buckets of plant and reflect…

    Reply
    • Admin says

      November 18, 2021 at 6:59 AM

      Thanks Neil – quite an honour! We do like to challenge the safety BS that has been promulgated in the workplace and our lives as well. I’ll let dr rob respond on the detail

      Reply
  2. Steve says

    August 24, 2021 at 6:20 PM

    Great article Rob! My organisation uses the Bow Tie with excitement and vigour, totally consumed in it as the go-to methodology for risk management…..

    Reply
    • Rob Long says

      August 25, 2021 at 9:26 AM

      Yes Steve, so many of these models are put forward with so little consideration of people, social influences, culture and a host of critical factors in risk. The reason Safety loves them so much is because they are brutal and focused on objects. Then the deify models and worship them as if they were ordained from on high. Much like iCam, which is s woeful form of investigation.

      Reply
      • Rose says

        August 25, 2021 at 5:24 PM

        Rob, what a relief it is to read your critique of Bow tie and iCam.
        Have thought exactly the same for some time. These two methods are held up as gold standard by many involved in health and safety and to express doubt as to their usefulness is heresy! It is dispiriting.

        Reply
        • Rob Long says

          August 25, 2021 at 6:09 PM

          Thanks Rose. So many of the forms and processes created by Safety are simply appalling but adored by an industry that is yet to learn that risk is all about people not objects. But there you go, so many people are happy with rubbish just as long as it is signed and they think it covers their arse, which of course it doesn’t, but that’s the safety delusion.

          Reply

Do you have any thoughts? Please share them belowCancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search and Discover More on this Site

Never miss a post - Subscribe via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,509 other subscribers.

FREE eBOOK DOWNLOADS

Recent Comments

  • Rob Long on The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Simon Cassin on The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Rob Long on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • rosa a carrillo on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Matthew Thorne on The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • Rob Long on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Matt Thorne on Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Rob Long on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Rosa Carrillo on Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Brent Charlton on Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Anonymous on What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Rob Long on Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Rob Long on Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Rob Long on Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Rob long on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • Anonymous on Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote

RECOMMENDED READING

viral post – iso 45003 and what it cannot do

Introduction to SPOR – FREE!!

Psychosocial Safety and Mental Health Series

Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?

If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health

Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk

7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden

Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health

If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking

Effective Strategies in Mental Health at Work

CLLR Newsletter July 2023

Playing With Mental Health in Safety is Dangerous

STOP ‘BREAKING’ PEOPLE! The notion of Psychological Safety

More Posts from this Category

NEW! Free Download

Please take our 2 minute zero survey

Footer

Top Posts & Pages. Sad that most are so dumb but this is what safety luves

  • CATCHY and FUNNY SAFETY SLOGANS FOR THE WORKPLACE
  • Free Safety Moments and Toolbox Talk Examples, Tips and Resources
  • The Critical Outcome is to Improve Safety
  • BIGGEST COLLECTION of WORKPLACE HEALTH and SAFETY SLOGANS 2023
  • CLASSIC, FAMOUS and INFAMOUS SAFETY QUOTES
  • Road Safety Slogans 2023
  • Zero is Founded on Deceit and Lies
  • How To Write a Safety Report
  • FREE RISK ASSESSMENT FORMS, CHECKISTS, REGISTERS, TEMPLATES and APPS
  • Safety Acronyms

Recent Posts

  • When You Don’t Know, Just Make S4*t Up
  • The Critical Outcome is to Improve Safety
  • Zero is Founded on Deceit and Lies
  • Have You Had a Drink of SafeTea?
  • The Blessings of Fallibility
  • Safety as Zero, The Perfect Event
  • Validating, Endorsing and Supporting Zero
  • The Global ‘Zero Event’, This is Safety
  • If You Can’t Manage Fallibility, You’ll Never Tackle Psychosocial Health
  • Embodiment, Myth and Psychosocial Risk
  • Embodied Enactivity in Safety
  • The Meaning of Myth in Risk
  • Myth Making and Why it Matters to Safety
  • Icebreakers and Games that Safety Trainers Play
  • The Power of Safety Myths
  • What Do You Mean By Performance?
  • Hopkins-Dekker on Reason and Other Laughs
  • Perfection is Safety Child’s Play
  • Podcast – Dr Rob Long With John Morlan and The Risk Matrix
  • What’s Funny About Safety?
  • Zero Hour part 6 Knowing Yourself
  • Free Videos, Podcasts and Books on Zero
  • Don’t Be Dumb Like Me, the Typical Safety Keynote
  • If You’re Happy in Safety, Clap Your Hands
  • Safety Cops and Safety’s Adoration of Power
  • Zero Hour Part 5 – Surfacing the Unconscious
  • Zero Hour Part 4 – Zero and the Unconscious
  • Auditing the 7 Golden Rules of Zero, A Miserable Fail
  • 7 Golden Rules that are NOT Golden
  • The Non-Golden Rules for Leadership in Zero
  • Seven ‘Golden’ Rules for Zero and Yet No Ethic
  • Why Zero Vision Can Never Tackle Mental Health
  • Is this Your Safety?
  • SPoR Workshops Canberra 18-21 September
  • The Dominance of Zero as the ‘Common Denominator’ of Safety
  • Zero Hour Episode 3
  • Goal Setting and Zero
  • Zero as a Worldview
  • If Psychosocial Health Matters, Stop Hot Desking
  • Book Launch – “Zero, The Great Safety Delusion” – Free Download
  • Breach of Faith and Psycho-Social Risk
  • Zero Harm is Never Zero Harm
  • Why Would You Want to be a Safety “Geek’ or Hero?
  • The Mental Illness of Identifying as Safety
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a place holder
  • Zero Hour – Zero as a Philosophy
  • CARING ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
  • Care is NOT a Factor and Yes, Your Model Matters
  • Care Ethics and the Ethics of Care, in Risk
  • FEAR AND CONTROL – Dialogue in a technological society

VIRAL POST!!! HOW TO QUIT THE SAFETY INDUSTRY

FEATURED POSTS

Like a Rhizome Cowboy

Day 1 SPoR In Europe

Gestures in Risk Management – A Podcast

What Can Safety Learn From Playschool?

The Conundrum in Discerning Risk

The Benefits of SPOR

Understanding The Social Psychology of Risk – Prof Karl E. Weick

I Have the Power, I’m a Safety Hero

iCue Listening Engagement Manual

Safety as a Knowledge Culture

Paralysis by Precaution

Safety Leadership Training

Triarchic Thinking and Risk

Intuition and Safety

Tackling Risk, A Field Guide to Risk and Learning

Keep Discovering

The Heart of Wisdom at Covid Time

History and Safety

Semiotics and Safety

What are Your Secret Messages in Safety?

Wisdom, Discernment and an Ethic of Safety

Psychology and safety

Rituals in Risk Management – Podcast

Safety and The Sunk Cost Fallacy

The Meaning of Myth in Risk

It Takes Two to Tango–Reflections on Safe Behaviour

Online Inductions and Safety Effectiveness

Safety Career Highlight

Safety is the Wrong Anchor

Conducting a Psychology and Culture Safety Walk

Off to a Flying Start in Learning with CLLR

The Acts of God and Act of Humans

Risk Culture and Cultural Risk

You Can’t Will Attentiveness

Tensions and Faultiness in Risk

I Don’t Serve Systems

C. G. Jung on Risk and Safety

A Culture of Care (and sackings…)

Process driven or People driven? What’s your Focus?

Psycho-social workplace issues

More Posts from this Category

VIRAL POST – The Risk Matrix Myth

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address and join other discerning risk and safety people who receive notifications of new posts by email

Join 7,509 other subscribers.

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY?

What is Psychological Safety at Work?


WHAT IS PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY